About Us

Read about our business and owner Michael Hughes

About TTL | Recording Philosophy | Equipment | Owner Michael Hughes

 

About TTL
TTL Audio Productions is a mobile audio recording service centrally located to both the Dayton and Cincinnati metropolitan areas.  We produce high quality recordings of classical and acoustical music for both professional and amateur musicians, using the finest equipment and know-how in the specialized field of on-location acoustic recording to provide you with outstanding quality and personal service at a great price.  Our recordings have been broadcast on locally and nationally produced National Public Radio programs. 

It is important to understand that TTL is not a recording studio.  Our specialty is location recording of acoustic musical events.  Our valued client list includes numerous talented musicians at both the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music and Miami University, Lebanon Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Ning An/Gloria Chien piano duo, Miami University Choraliers and Chamber Singers, Miami University Symphony Orchestra, The Cheezies (male a cappella group), Coventry Green vocal ensemble, and many, many more.

Recording Philosophy
The types of music we record are best served by using minimalist recording techniques.  We use as few microphones as necessary to successfully achieve a vibrant and natural sounding recording.  Frequently, this may mean using as few as only two or four carefully placed high quality microphones.  Recording services that utilize "close-miking" (widely used in studio pop music recording) or massive quantities of microphones do not make better sounding recordings.  In fact, this "studio" approach effectively removes control of musical balance and perspective from the musicians and place it squarely in the hands of the recording engineer.  Our approach is not only sonically far superior for recording acoustic music, but it is also less expensive to produce!

We have audio editing capabilities that are precise to within a thousandth of a second.  Even though it is usually preferable to employ minimal editing, our clients may take comfort in the fact that we can edit most anything completely seamlessly.  We also have the ability to apply tasteful reverberation, equalization, compression, and other digital manipulations to a recording, but we limit or avoid their use unless absolutely necessary.  Our aim is always to achieve a natural sound.

Because we insist on providing our clients with the highest quality product possible, we include post-production, editing and full mastering on every project, large or small.  We will never "hand you a CD" at the conclusion of your performance: we will always take the time to produce a recording you'll be proud to share with your friends and colleagues and listen to again and again.  All our clients receive the same attention to detail and fast turnaround service.

Equipment
Our recordings are made using DSD (Direct Stream Digital®) high resolution audio technology.  DSD provides 128 times the resolution of standard CD audio and greatly enhances the depth and dynamic range in your recording, even when rendered to standard CD.

To capture great sound, there is no substitute for using great microphones.  TTL owns a collection of world-class German condenser microphones by Schoeps and Gefell, and is pleased to be among the first to own and use the new Sennheiser MKH8000 series microphones.  Both Schoeps and Sennheiser are the preferred microphones used on many award-winning commercial classical recordings by Telarc, Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, so you know they deliver top quality sonics.  High-end Mogami cabling feeds our microphone signals to ultra-transparent microphone preamplifiers by Benchmark Media Systems and DAV Electronics.

After your session, we load your material onto our Intel® Core 2 Duo digital audio workstation for editing and post-production.  We do all post in Wavelab, one of the most respected audio editing and mastering programs available, and monitor on speaker systems by NHT and Vandersteen.

Browse over to our Listen page to hear some samples.

Owner Michael Hughes
Michael Hughes founded TTL Audio Productions in 1995 following extensive study and on-location apprenticeships.  Over a decade later, he has grown the business with a dedicated client list by producing recordings of uniformly high quality.

Michael’s passion for music has been manifested through his collection and study of more than 2,500 classical recordings and many years as a performing percussionist, arranger and teacher.  He is an active choral tenor and has sung numerous works in the choral repertoire, and has also had a lifelong passion for the pipe organ and its history, construction and literature.  He is happily married to Yun Kyong Kim, a nationally recognized organist and harpsichordist, whom he met in 1997 on an organ study tour in Paris.  They reside in Monroe, Ohio.

   
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